Station Gets Reboost, Crew Prepares for Spacewalk

The orbit of the International Space Station was raised Thursday during an 11-minute, 4-second reboost using the ISS Progress 39 cargo ship’s thrusters. The reboost puts the orbiting laboratory in position for the upcoming rendezvous, grapple and berthing of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s H-II Transfer Vehicle 2 (HTV2) on Jan. 27. It also brings the station to the correct altitude for docking opportunities with space shuttle Discovery in February.

Flight Engineers Dmitry Kondratyev and Oleg Skripochka worked in the Pirs docking compartment to prepare their Orlan spacesuits for a spacewalk scheduled for Jan. 21. During the spacewalk, the cosmonauts will install and retrieve experiments and install a television camera on the Russian side of the station.

Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineer Catherine Coleman built and routed contingency jumper cables to prepare for the upcoming arrival of HTV2. The cables will help integrate HTV2’s systems to the station once it is berthed at the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module.

Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri set up and monitored the Plasma Crystal experiment, an ongoing Russian investigation that studies how plasma dust structures affect the station’s environment when exposed to ultraviolet space radiation.

In the European Columbus module, Flight Engineer Paolo Nespoli took part in an in-flight media interview with BBC World News.

The Expedition 26 crew aboard the station observed the National Moment of Silence Monday in honor of the victims of the Tucson, Arizona shooting Saturday.